UPDATE: a video demonstrating Com Reclaim Fix has been added to the article.

Over time every RTS develops a meta; units come into favour and fall out of it, people develop new tactics which defeat the old. An RTS doesn’t become stale until a strategy emerges that is so dominant is becomes required above all others.

In the article Commander Reclaim: How To Ruin PA, elodea makes the argument that Commander reclaim meets these criteria. A strategy which comes off the back of changes designed to make the Commander harder to repair or reclaim to death, earlier this year Qzipco discovered that it could be used as a means to jump start your economy.

Elodea walks you through what he sees as the problem and proposes some fixes for it. Check out the full article and let us know your thoughts.

This Saturday we’re running the Andreas G 4 Casual tournament. What’s a casual? It’s an opportunity for players who may not be among the top ranks of the game to get a chance to shine. All players are welcome, but with enough sign-ups we split platinum and uber players into their own brackets.

If you’ve ever wanted to be in a tournament, have your games cast, get people cheering for you on stream, then this is the tournament to join. Regardless of your ability there’s good fun to be had, and as a double-elimination tournament you’re guaranteed two games minimum. Who knows, perhaps it will be you in the final?

This particular casual is a Legion casual. This means you can play either as the MLA (the original faction) or the Legion. Twice the choice, so there’s bound to be something to suit your style of play. If you haven’t heard of the Legion then check out our article on the Legion Expansion.

Want to see what a casual looks liket? Check out the previous tournament, Andreas G 3 Casual, and have a look at some of the VODs.

Following a week of extensive testing and feedback we’ve prepared another patch for the Legion Expansion. Now that it’s available to all Planetary Annihilation: TITANS players we’re getting a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t out in the field.

This time around we’ve implemented some changes designed to help you migrate from the MLA to the Legion, moving units into build locations that best fit the role the MLA unit in that position would have held. We’ve also nerfed a couple of units that seemed abusable, though we’ll be seeing how those Starcannon changes fare. In addition we’ve worked to eliminate some unnecessary micro on the Salamander, while hopefully not allowing you to micro it when you want to.

Lastly, there are some general fixes to improve the general polish of the mod.

Check out the full changelog below.

General

Switched Deathmark and Havoc on the build bar so their positions are better aligned with MLA roles

Switched Salamander and Infiltrator on the build bar so their positions are better aligned with MLA roles

Over the past few months Uber and mikeyh have been hard at work on the largest piece of work done to Planetary Annihilation since TITANS dropped. It’s a beast, but its been worth the wait. And yes, it means the Legion Expansion works in multiplayer again on Uber’s servers.

If you’re on the PTE branch make sure to switch back to the normal branch in Steam.

Firstly it introduces an native mod manager called Community mods to replace PA Mod Manager. It’s all handled in-game now, ensuring everyone has access to the same great mods only a small section of the community was accessing before. They even auto-update now! Personally, I’d urge everyone to install PA Chat.

Custom server support has gone native, no mods required. If there’s a custom server up and running then everyone will be able to see it, making it much easier to fill up those 32 player FFAs the community loves to run.

On top of that are changes that are perhaps less sexy, but just as vital. Modding support has been expanded even further, introducing a number of changes that made the Legion Expansion possible. There are more colours, more server options, better replay support…

Finally it squashes a hell of a lot of long-standing bugs. Last slot bugged out in your lobby? Squashed. PA selected your integrated graphics card rather than discrete? Squashed. Chronocom non-responsive at the end of a game? Squashed.

Game Over

In mid-may the Big Brother tournament was held, courtesy of River. This followed in the footsteps of the Clopsey Pro-Am where a high-skilled player of the platinum/uber rank was paired up with a player of lower skill. Over six rounds of Swiss the battles were fought and River captured six action packed matches.

These matches are now all available on the videos page, along with some POV videos from one of the teams that partook.

It’s time for another weekly update for Legion Expansion. As memorial weekend comes to a close we’re really close to seeing the Planetary Annihilation PTE pushed to the stable branch, allowing all players access to the Legion with no hoops to jump through.

As we’re getting close to this miraculous occasion we want to get your feedback on the beta. If you can take five minutes to complete this survey we’d greatly appreciate it.

It’s a light patch this time, but it contains some important balance changes. We’re focused on trying to improve unit diversity and get away from the Enforcer spam meta we’ve seen take hold. With the health drop we’re hopeful that Monstrosities will need to be added into the mix to act as a shield for the fragile Enforcer, as well as making T2 vehicles more relevant. While we also include a nerf to the Starcannon we’re considering additional measures to make anti-orbital defences more effective against it, so stay tuned.

General

Mixed MLA/Legion armies now use a custom icon on the player list

Balance

Starcannon nerf:

Pods can now be shot down by Bluehawks, Catapults, Stingrays and Panzers

Decimator buff:

Health increased from 1500 to 2500

Panzer nerf:

Missiles can now be shot down by GIL-Es

Fixes

Removed an invalid ammo type to prevent errors

Panzer no longer misses at close range

Legion tag no longer shown in UI in non-Legion games

INSTALLATION:

The Legion Expansion relies on the latest features of Planetary Annihilation TITANS which currently are only available via the PTE. Check out this eXodus eSports article which explains what a PTE is and how to get it.

The Legion Expansion is installed from the Community Mods section of Planetary Annihilation TITANS. Simply search for “Legion” and choose to install the Legion Expansion. All required elements will be installed. AI support is included within the mod, but for enhanced AI try installing the Queller AI as well.

HOW TO PLAY:

Uber have put out another PTE. This might be the last one before it’s released to stable, fingers crossed and all that. We’ve summarised the changes for you, and while we reported last time that the fix for lobbies with an unjoinable slot had been fixed, it has definitely been fixed this time.

There are still no PTE servers, so for the Legion Expansion players among you your games still need to occur on local servers with the AI. Or a custom server running PTE if you fancy setting one up. Once PTE goes to stable Legion will be playable on Uber’s servers once again.

Fixed fix for can’t join empty slot issue

Uber has always provided servers for hosting your games. But if you wanted to break the 10 player limit, or put a little more juice into late game performance, then hosting your own custom server was the only way to go. And right now if you want to host a Legion Expansion game then you have to have a custom server running the PTE version of the game.

mikeyh has kindly updated the Custom Server Setup guide to make it both easier to use (no more VIM!) and relevant to the latest versions of Planetary Annihilation.

So if you want big games, or Legion games, check out the guide to see what you need to do.

Work continues on the Planetary Annihilation: TITANS Legion Expansion with bugs being eliminated, new features being added and the balance continuing to be tweaked. The big change in this release is that players will no longer need to have the Legion Expansion installed to be able to play in a Legion Expansion game. While the recommendation is still that you install it ahead of time, the days of unaware players joining and then crashing are over.

Unfortunately the Legion Expansion is not playable in multiplayer at the moment. This is due to its reliance on features introduced in the PTE, and the absence of any PTE servers at this time. Once build 94533 or later is released to stable you will be able to play Legion online again. Until then AI skirmish remains available for use with the local server option in settings enabled.

General

Improved MLA selection graphics in lobby

In-game menu is now red when Legion UI is enabled

Removed blue shadows from UI elements when Legion UI is enabled

Novas prioritise air

Optimised Nova effects for performance

Standardised colouring of commanders on game launch splash

Standardised colouring of Commanders in lobby

Infiltrator’s probe scan effect plays more than once after deployment to more clearly show its function

Wraith renamed to Spectre

Excalibur renamed to Paladin

Added idle effects to the Havoc

Improved PA startup time when Legion is disabled through use of new companion mod feature